


The Prince of the Game

by eldritcher



Series: The Song of Sunset, The Second Age [8]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:35:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cirdan thought that indulging Thranduil in one game of Parcheesi wouldn't be a big deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prince of the Game

The 1st Age,

Mithlond.

 

“My lord!” Ingwion’s beautiful daughter rushed to me, a squirming bundle of elfling in her hands. “Take him to Oropher, please. My father and brothers would do him harm, I fear.”

I had never touched an elfling before. I was leery of the creature. But she dumped the babe into my hands and rushed away, to where her father waited. Predictably, the child began crying.

“Be quiet,” I growled at the child. 

I was frightened. The babe squirmed so much that it was like clutching at a very slippery eel. I hurried to the castle and placed the child on my desk, panting slightly from the effort. I sighed as it began to wail loudly. Through the window, I could see Ingwion dragging his sobbing daughter away. I struck my fist on the desk in helpless vexation and the child’s wails reached a louder pitch. 

“Círdan!” Galadriel came. She stopped midstride when she saw two fists sticking out of a bundle of sheets. 

“Do something,” I hissed at her. She was, admittedly, not the motherly type. But courage held her spirit and she came slowly forward to bestow a tentative touch on a clenched baby fist. The child’s cries sounded as if we were trying to assassinate it. 

“I will fetch Oropher,” she offered.

“I will fetch him.” I gave her no quarter. There was absolutely no way that I would let her leave me alone with this.

“I am faster,” she hedged. 

The child twisted in the bundle and it rolled over to the edge of the desk.

“Careful!” I shouted at it in frustration.

“This is ridiculous,” Galadriel muttered as she stooped and took the bundle into her arms. The swathing sheets fell away, leaving naked to our gaze a bonny face crowned by a mop of golden hair and eyes greener than the emerald brooch on Galadriel’s cloak.

“Elbereth,” I whispered. 

“Thranduil,” Galadriel said quietly.

The child stopped crying and sniffled dolefully at us. Something wrenched my heart and I ventured to bestow a light pat on the babe’s shoulder, as I had often done with Ereinion. The child seized the chance to twist its little fingers into my beard and dragged the hair to its face, gurgling excitedly.

I pulled away in fear. The child continued clenching, its jaw jutting in determination. I cursed and tugged at my beard. The boy’s squirming body toppled from Galadriel’s hands into my own. She gave a cry of fear and seized at him, resulting in a most inappropriate posture, with the child squeezed between us.

“This is a pretty sight!” Celeborn exclaimed as he strode in and saw us gripping each other’s shoulders in order to prevent the child falling from its perch between us. “Círdan, you are fondling my wife!”

“For Eru’s sake, Celeborn!” she said exasperatedly. “Take the child!”

Celeborn chuckled and proceeded to do so (it was one of those periods of extreme romance when he would have done anything she cared to ask of him), his handsome features softening as he took the child from us. We envied his ease as he rocked the child against him and cooed something soft until the child began drifting to sleep. The emerald eyes peered at us suspiciously from beneath the fringe of golden hair and blinked. Then the babe stuck a thumb into its mouth and cuddled into Celeborn’s robes. 

 

The 2nd Age,

Mithlond.

 

“I am bored,” he complained as he paced aimlessly in my study. “Entertain me, you are my host.”

I peered up at my young companion before returning to my correspondence silently, trying my best not to notice an emerald-eyed hurricane rifling through the display cases.

“I am bored,” he muttered again. “Let us play a game, Círdan.”

“Find someone else to amuse yourself,” I retorted. “You knew well that you would be bored if you came to Mithlond.”

“But I was equally bored in Greenwood.” He yawned, shrugging his shoulders indolently. What was it about that spoilt princeling which made me want to indulge him even more? Maybe it was the fact that letting him have his way resulted in relative peace in my city. Prince of chaos, Celeborn had named him aptly. 

“Ada refuses to let me travel to Lindon,” he was saying dolefully.

“And he is wise to do so,” I said. “We would be hard put to restrain you, I fear.”

“Restrain?” The emerald eyes lit up with deviousness and he said with great interest, “I like that word, Círdan. You scintillate this evening.”

I snorted and returned resolutely to the correspondence. I could not help wondering where he had learnt to enhance every word with such depraved nuances. My eyes gave up on the correspondence and returned to watching him. He sauntered about the chamber, idly crafting bolts out of scrolls and flicking them at me, the veins under the fair skin of his lean wrist flexing as he did so. 

“You are watching me,” he proclaimed happily. “Which part of me are you watching, Círdan?”

It was high time Oropher did something about this son of his. I remembered the epistle I had from him.

“Dear Círdan,

My son wishes to enjoy your hospitality for this season. I am certain that you shall get along well with him. He is very agreeable company if you overlook his laziness, sulkiness, haughtiness and brazen propositioning. I am afraid that every myth you have heard about him is partially true...” 

Oropher had understated his son’s attributes. This dervish was the greatest disaster to hit my city since Elros and Elrond had arrived. To be fair, Elrond had been quiet and reserved. But Elros had ripped apart Mithlond in his week’s stay here. I believe that he succeeded in deflowering every maiden in the city. I had been most relieved when Ereinion had taken them away. Only for Maedhros’s sake had I put up with them.

Thranduil was, in many ways, worse. Women fawned over him and men vied to be his guide in the city. His relentless quest for bedpartners worried me so. If he caught a venereal disease, Oropher would not hesitate to make me a victim of kinslaying. My characteristic reserve had prevented me from speaking to Thranduil about the risks he ran in venturing to the brothels. But the state of matters had become so dangerous that I sent word to Erestor in Lindon. 

“Get him a clean courtesan...or two...every night.”

That had been my dear foster-son’s reply. I could only blame Maglor’s blood for such an impudent answer. But I loved my foster-children deeply. Be it Ereinion, who had been silent and withdrawn in his childhood, or Erestor, who had tagged Glorfindel and I throughout the city, or sweet Menelwen, none of them had ever caused me such trouble as Thranduil did now. Of course, he had always been one, from his advent as a bundle of squirming elfling.

“I am going to ring for dinner,” I said querulously after pieces of parchment littered my beard as a result of my companion’s dart practice. “Let us part for the night. You vex me so!”

“You don’t find me sinfully alluring?” he fluttered his eyelashes indecently. Did the young fool know how powerful his emerald eyes were, beneath those golden lashes?

I said sharply, “I am older than your good father.”

“But you are not my father, and that makes all the difference.”

I called for dinner.

 

I had once held the golden child in my arms. The babe had seemed so innocent and vulnerable that it had wormed its way into my heart. Now, it was fiddling with an oyster. Emerald eyes were flecked with irritation as he tried to pry the shell open with his slender fingers. 

“Haven’t you been taught how to eat them?” I asked.

“This is the first time I am seeing them,” he said irritably. “Come and help me like a good host, Círdan.”

I shook my head at the presumptive, arrogant tone but complied. His jaw was set in such a firm manner that I wondered if there was Noldorin blood somewhere in him. Oropher had been a mild-mannered womanizer in his youth. Ingwion’s daughter had been a lady of grace and refinement. Whom did Thranduil take after then? 

Warm fingers came to rest over mine as I pried the shell open. I flicked them away, not wanting to get distracted by the sliding movements of those digits over my hands. 

“Círdan, Círdan,” he purred in that dangerous, silken voice which could have melted rock.

“Here, it is opened. Now eat it,” I said brusquely. Then I hastily made my way to my seat and resumed my dining. 

“You are the kindest host,” he remarked as he brought the half-shell to his lips. 

“Do shut up,” I advised, all the while wondering how Oropher managed to control this walking disaster.

“Since you ask me to,” he murmured, and tipped his head back, exposing the golden length of his indecently long throat. I shook my head in exasperation and tore my eyes away from the sight. He tossed the contents of the shell into his mouth with such languid ease that I had to doubt his claim that he had never eaten oysters before. Except for a faint grimace at the taste, he looked perfectly satiated when he met my gaze calmly. A dribble of the semisolid was making its way down the corner of his lips. 

Holding my eyes prisoners with his emerald gaze, he licked away the dribble with such sensuous intent that I wanted to throttle him. Long absent thoughts began to coil their tenuous way into my conscious. 

“Did you like it?” I asked composedly, determined not to let him know of the effect his careless sensuality was having upon me.

“To be frank,” he leant back and viewed me with half-lidded eyes, “I have tasted liquids more bitter and protein-rich in less restrained circumstances.” 

I set down my wine goblet with more force than necessary, glaring at him in shocked anger. I knew he was baiting me. Oropher had warned me, after all. But I had not expected such a bold approach.

He stretched his lithe body, warm legs coming to brush my feet underneath the table accidentally. In the flickering torchlight, his eyes were darkening steadily, and he refused to avert his bold gaze despite my warning look.

“You are disgustingly filthy,” I complained. 

There was nothing to be done but to tell him outright that I would not countenance such behaviour under my roof. He could woo and bed as many men and women as he wanted outside my establishment. Hadn’t I turned a blind eye all through his stay? The only thing I asked was that he did not press his advances on me. Frankly, his attentions were tiring...and powerfully flattering.

“Am I?” He leant forward, his eyes sparkling in amusement. “How filthy do you think I can become?”

“You are young, prince.” I cleared my throat. “Later in life, you shall regret your youthful indiscretions. Your people will look up to you and the example you set is not very advisable. Which king or lord shall be willing to give you their daughter’s hand in marriage if you continue down this path of vice?”

“Kings and lords needn’t give me their daughters,” he scoffed, flicking his hand in complete disdain that I had to stare at him astounded by his arrogance. “I shall simply choose the one I fancy. I swear to you, Círdan, the woman wouldn’t mind disobeying her father to marry the golden prince of Greenwood.”

“You are quite full of yourself, aren’t you?” I asked sarcastically. “I shall pray that a venereal disease shall not be your downfall!”

“You are ever so gracious, Círdan.” He yawned indolently, the very picture of hauteur. “Now, will you play a game with me?”

“A game?” I took my goblet again. “I have no wish to play games with you, young prince. I shall occupy myself writing a letter to your illustrious father.”

“He knows what I do,” Thranduil assured me easily. “The letter can wait. Now, please, and please again, indulge me and play a game?”

The note of pleading in his voice did not sway me. The earnestness contained in his green gaze too had nothing to do with my decision. The warm toes accidentally brushing the underside of my feet were definitely not factors that weighed. 

“Very well then.”

I wondered what I had got myself into when he winked at me and rushed out of the chamber, his spirits unassailably high. I muttered a silent prayer to Ulmo, my guardian, imploring him to save me from young sprites like Thranduil Oropherion.


End file.
